


Fortunate Things

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Additional characters/ships to be added, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Fairies, Gen, M/M, Royalty, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 03:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8781817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There's something about the statue in the park that calls out to Roderich, always has. As if it's not a statue at all, but a someone cursed, in need of help.When he wanders past it in the evenings, on his way home from school, he can almost hear a voice bemoaning how tragic it is for an awesome figure to be stuck in stone.Of course, that is likely just his imagination.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for Urban Fantasy PruAus in my head forever, and just the other day the setting just started writing itself, and the story finally clicked into place-- this will likely be the first (and longest) in a series of fics that take place in this setting (focusing on different characters/relationships in each).

“Do you want to hear a story, Roderich?” Elizaveta asks, and Roderich nods, humoring her. They are still children here, nine years old, and things are still simple, skinned knees only exist outside them.

Elizaveta hums, contemplative. “Once upon a time, there was a prince and a knight,” she starts. “The prince was lovely, of course, and could make magic from music, and the knight was the strongest in the land, and she could beat anyone in combat. Everyone loved them both very much.”

She pauses, and takes the time to pull a loose thread from her shirt. She ties the green thread around Roderich’s finger. “The prince and the knight lived up in a tower, far from everyone else in the village. A vicious monster, a big awful dragon, guarded the tower. They were alone, but they were very happy together.”

She trails off, looking agitated with herself. Roderich waits patiently. He knows Elizaveta will talk again when she's ready.

“One day, the bold lady knight and fair prince tried to run away,” she says, finally. “They wanted to see the world and rescue the Stone Prince. They just had to get past the dragon first. Sadly, the dragon was too fast and too strong. He roasted them to a crisp and ate them. By his account, they were delicious.”

“That's not really a happy story,” Roderich says.

Elizaveta shrugs. “It's happy for the dragon.”

\--

Their city (town, really) is a blend-- children of immigrants from all over the world melding into what passes for American melting-pot-culture on the surface, but old cultural aspects linger in the cracks and crevices of each different household. 

The blending goes deeper than that, though. People from here blend with people from there, sure, but humanity blends with magic, too.

It's a small city, barely able to be called that, they boast a single skyscraper only fifteen stories high, and a low turnout for tourism.

Most of what they get are wiccans and hippies, vegans and pagans. People who want to see the city's magic. People who can't help but leave disappointed.

Nobody ever wants to see magic as it is. It never lives up to expectation.

Here, it lingers in building foundations, colonial-style homes that haven't fallen down for decades, just been improved upon. It lingers in the way that kid Matthew looks at the changeling Alfred like a brother, like it was always meant to be this way. It lingers in the shapeshifters, Ivan and his sisters, they way they can change form from time to time. It lingers in the thrumming of old gods running through little Emil Bondevik’s veins, much to his brother Lukas’ worry and irritation.

And above all, it lingers in the marble statue in the park. The one that looks less like marble shaped into a young man’s form and more like a fae-prince turned to stone.

Nobody knows where the statue came from, even those who have lived in this city for generations couldn't tell you. It's been there for a century at least, probably two or even more.

A young man, nearly human if not for his slightly-sharp teeth (peeking through his lips as he stares forward, permanently, with his defiant grin), and small horns poking through his hair. And his inhuman beauty, of course.

The people of the city call him their good luck charm, their fae-prince, their city statue. They call him the Stone Prince. 

They don't know where he came from, though. No one does. Even the real fae who sometimes drift into town, and who throw revels under the hills on the outskirts of town, cannot recall.

Elizaveta and Roderich, as children, used to play pretend with the statue, imagining that he was a handsome prince in need of rescuing, cursed, and that only the strongest knight and the handsome prince with the strongest music-magic could save him.

It never worked. They didn't truly expect it to. Their games were only that, in the end.


	2. recurrance

“Am I _cursed_?” Roderich asks the prophet from his fifth period gym class, after the third consecutive time he's slipped and fallen face-first on the hallway floor.

It's a bad omen, probably, and this time he spilled all his sheet music.

Instead of helping him pick it up, or even answering him with words like a normal person, ever-sarcastic transfer student from Hong Kong, merely hands him a fortune cookie. When Roderich cleans up his papers, he cracks it open. The slip inside reads: DOOM AND DISASTER DOG YOUR STEPS, WHITE BOY. OR MAYBE NOT. LUCKY NUMBERS 3, 456, 34, 90, 1.

Roderich doesn't think this is funny. Lei Siu finds it hilarious, if his smirk is any indication. Roderich remembers why he doesn't really talk to freshmen-- their sense of humor is so childish.

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to linger in the hallway-- if nothing else, he does have three more classes to get to before the day is done.

Slipping into his biology class, he settles next to Elizaveta as always, and takes the time before the class officially starts to tell her what's been happening. Elizaveta laughs at first, when he gets to the part about the fortune cookie, her little trill of a laugh, like songbirds, before sobering, serious once more.

“It's probably nothing. If you were cursed, you'd know. Don't be such a…” she trails off, likely searching for a turn a concept in her native Hungarian into English. “Don't get paranoid,” she settles on at last.

Roderich sighs, about to retort, when their teacher makes his way into the room. There is no room for argument there, and he lets the subject drop.

Biology goes the same as usual. The same, Roderich suspects, as a biology class elsewhere, as he listens to the teacher go on about photosynthesis and the complex, natural equations that go into the process.

It's regular, same as anywhere else, until he pulls out a slide on photosynthesising fae, those that have let themselves be studied by people only here, only in this city.

If someone from elsewhere (far-off New York or nearby Santa Fe or even his parents’ home-city of Vienna) saw this lesson, Roderich supposes they might find this class ridiculous. But no one can live here and not know.

There aren't even people who are willfully ignorant. You can't stay ignorant of the fact that this city isn't like other places. You can't come and not see it.

Not that Roderich ever tried. He was born here, raised here, let's himself know this city the way people know the beating of their own heart.

(Cities have heartbeats and heartbeats are music and music is magic, that's the connection. Roderich has music-spells on his fingertips. A gift from some faerie to his mother while she was pregnant with him.)

Roderich takes notes lazily. He can study photosynthesis later, when his mind isn't occupied with other things.

Class ends, they're dismissed, and Roderich turns to Elizaveta, mouth half open in the start of a question.

“No,” she answers before he can begin. He frowns at her. His frowns have always been deliberate things, given the effort of maintaining such an expression for longer than a moment. She really does know him too well, but then… they have been friends since childhood.

“Elizaveta I was simply--”

“No. We’re not going to check if you're _cursed,_. You know you'd know if you were. You'd be a statue like the prince in the park if you were.”

“But I--”

“Hey, want to see him?” she asks, eyes sparkling they way they used to when they were children. “We haven't even said hi to him since our first year of high school.”

He agrees-- it's been a while. “We can go after school.”

\--

They wander into the park at seven in the evening, and Roderich is winded from the mile-long walk. He doesn't understand why they couldn't bus there-- but Elizaveta, who is in much better shape than Roderich will ever be, just laughed when he suggested it.

She walked slowly with him, didn't rush him. He appreciated that.

“Hey, Stone Prince,” he heard Elizaveta say as she caught sight of the statue. “It's been a while.”

As children, they had imagined he could hear them, imagined that his cocky grin would become a genuine smile for them and them alone.

He remained still as a photograph, however.

“I still like to think he misses us, when we're not around.”

“I do, too,” Roderich says, smiling wistfully at the statue. It would be easy, after all, to see anything in that defiant grin.

He wondered how much of their childish imaginings could be based on fact, if this statue could be based off someone who would want to be loved by them.


End file.
